Vindication
by PlateDrachen
Summary: Izuku had always thought he and his symbiotic partner were alone, with no allies but each other to rely on. But when Izuku is captured by the hero he used to admire most, he is offered a chance he had thought he would never receive, in the form of the U.A. Redemption program. Will he finally become the hero he always wanted to be? Or will he just find himself lost in the shadows?


Prologue - Enter Venom

When Izuku woke up that morning, he had been expecting a relatively normal day.

Instead, he got what was hands down probably the worst day in his life.

(Well, besides maybe the day he was declared quirkless, anyway.)

See, early on in his life, he had learned a harsh lesson.

Not all people are created equal.

While an admittedly harsh lesson, considering he was still only four years old when he learned this, it was one most people learned at one point or another.

It usually didn't hit as hard as it did for Izuku, however, and the reason why was relatively simple.

Quirks.

See, when most people learn this lesson, they learn it in a way that is relatively harmless, if maybe a little painful. For example, someone who was born ugly looking upon someone who was born beautiful. It would hurt to know that no matter how hard they worked, no matter what they did, chances are, they would never reach that level of beauty. But for people like that, there was a high chance that they'd eventually learn to take it in stride, as they probably had advantages that aforementioned beautiful person didn't. For example, it would be easier for them to trust that any long-lasting friendships they forge are genuine, or at least closer to it, as anybody who befriended them would be doing it because of who they were, or, in a lesser scenario, because of something only they could do. They would not approach them because of something as superficial as 'beauty' because they did not _have_ such a thing in the first place. Rather, they would approach because of something that only existed because of who they were. Namely, their personality, or the skills they developed as a direct result of said personality.

The aforementioned passage is a normal example of people not being born equal. Every single person is given a different advantage in life. This means they are not equal simply because, even if two people were to choose the same destination, their ways of reaching it and enjoying said destination cannot be the same due to the tools they were given.

Still with me so far? Good, because I'm now about to explain what makes Izuku's situation different than the standard.

Quirks are superhuman abilities that, in Izuku's world, just about everybody has. But thankfully, they actually still play according to the same rules stated above, for the most part. All quirks are different, but not necessarily lesser than each other. Indeed, men are still not created equal, but this rule is simply more exaggerated than it was before. After all, all Quirks are good at different things, which means the same explanation as before still works. Perhaps one Quirk excels at combat while another excels in utility. Indeed, if both the holders of these Quirks were to decide to become the same thing, say, a hero, their quirks will cause them to take different paths, but that does not mean only one will arrive at the destination, it just means both will reach their destination in a different fashion, and enjoy it in a different light. Their advantages are different, their paths were different, but in the end, their inequality didn't truly mean all that much, as both were able to forge their own paths to happiness.

However, Izuku is something special, and not necessarily in a good way.

He, is Quirkless.

He wasn't just born with a different advantage, he was born with what basically amounted to no advantage at all.

In another world, this might not have mattered. After all, it isn't like he lacks advantages entirely. He is quite smart, after all, and that can be applied to any number of things, maybe becoming something like a Quirk analyzer or a scientist could have been in his future, but alas, this does not matter to Izuku.

After all, all he ever wanted was to be a hero.

Unfortunately, no ordinary human could hope to cut it as a hero, not when even the lowest ranked villain had a Quirk they could use to its' fullest.

One match up with someone he couldn't outsmart, or outwork, and that was it. He would die.

But, for better or for worse, that didn't stop him.

Neither did his mother's lack of faith. After all, while he hadn't understood it at the time, he had done a lot of research on heroes, as well as plain, old growing up since then, and he now understood that she just didn't understand. All she could see was that he was probably going to throw his life away, attempting to accomplish his dream, only to fail. She didn't understand why he didn't just choose another destination, another goal. What she did understand was that one day, she was probably going to go through that heartbreak of burying her only son, knowing the her son probably didn't even reach his goal in the end. What she simply didn't know, was that he _had_ tried, tried and failed, to find something else that could inspire him, that could bring him joy, the way dreaming of being a hero did, and in the end, found that being a hero was the only thing he truly wanted out of life, the only thing that could make him happy. Maybe that made him selfish, in fact, it almost certainly did, as far as he was concerned, pushing forward despite knowing that it would hurt his mother, especially when he had next to no chance of succeeding. But he felt he owed it to himself to try and be happy.

Of course, he wasn't exactly helped along his way by Bakugo's bullying, but he had long since grown used to it. It helped that by keeping Bakugo's attention on him, he felt he was keeping Bakugo from picking on other targets, something he felt was a good deed, if not necessarily a heroic one. A hero would have found a way to make Bakugo stop, preferably without violence, he felt, but alas, he never had been able to come up with a way of stopping him that didn't involve being stronger than Bakugo, and that wasn't going to happen. Today had been especially bad, admittedly, what with having one of his notebooks basically trashed and being told to take a dive off the roof, but he doubted Bakugo seriously meant it, considering he wanted to be a hero almost as bad as Izuku did. (A part of his mind had whispered that a great way to get Bakugo to stop his bullying, among other things, was to take a swan dive off the roof after leaving a note stating that he had taken Bakugo's 'advice'. At the time, he had outright rejected the thought, but now...)

But then today happened, and the delicate balance between his dream and reality he had made came crashing to the ground.

It started with being saved from a sludge villain.

A sludge villain had come up from a sewer grate behind him while he had been passing through a tunnel, and nearly succeeded in suffocating him to death, before All Might had shown up and blown the sludge villain to oblivion.

All Might had signed his notebook, but, before he could leave, before Izuku had even consciously realized what was happening, Izuku had grabbed onto him.

(Unbeknownst to the both of them, the way Izuku had grabbed onto All Might put the bottle hosting the mind of the sludge villain in between their bodies, preventing it from flying out of his pocket. Izuku had inadvertently saved the day, and neither of them would ever know.)

Upon landing on the roof, Izuku attempted to explain to All Might just why he had latched on, only to watch as, before his very eyes, All Might shrank. After an explanation from All Might about what had brought this about, Izuku decided to ask the question that plagued his mind anyways.

"Can someone without a Quirk be a hero like you?"

Suffice to say, the answer he received had not been what he had been hoping for, but deep down, it was what he had been expecting.

After all, when had things ever gone right for one Midoriya Izuku?

* * *

As he aimlessly walked down the street, Izuku stared at his feet, reflecting on his life, and what awaited him should he continue it.

His thoughts were not happy thoughts. Rather, he thought about things that, for the first time ever, left him feeling _truly_ hopeless.

He thought about how people would continue to walk all over him because he was Quirkless.

He thought about how Bakugo would continue on his way to being a hero, all the while stepping all over those he deemed lesser than him, never once knowing remorse for his actions.

And lastly, he thought of his mother, of how she would react to him finally acknowledging that he couldn't be a hero. Of how on the surface she would console him and tell him there were always other options, while deep down, she would be relieved that someone had finally stamped the hope out of him, relieved that she would not have to bury her son, because he had simply wanted something as selfish as to be _happy_.

These thoughts made him feel absolutely _sick_.

He knew that he couldn't let these things stand, and yet...

He also knew that he was powerless to change anything.

Seeing a large door enter his peripheral vision, he looked up, and couldn't even bring himself to feel surprised upon seeing a lesser known church.

They say that even the most devout atheist would be willing to pray to god in his most hopeless hour, and as far as being an atheist is concerned, Izuku most certainly wasn't all that devout at all.

Suffice to say, he felt more than hopeless enough to seek out comfort or hope wherever he could find it.

Walking through the huge double-door of the church, Izuku was half expecting to see some sort-of priest or janitor, the innocuous sort of people that give the hero some much needed advice during their hours of need.

Unsurprisingly, his half-expectations were not met. It was night out, after all, and he was no hero, nor was this some sort of action movie.

Walking through the aisles, Izuku found his eyes drawn to the eyes of a rather innocuous angel statue, and he couldn't help but feel like this was the perfect place to voice his thoughts.

After all, it wasn't like there would be anybody around to hear him talking to a statue.

Walking right up to the base of the statue, Izuku began to speak.

"Hello."

He couldn't help but snort at his half start, he was talking to a statue, he didn't need to say hello to an inanimate object.

Raising his eyes back up to those of the statue, he resumed talking.

"Why?"

Naturally, the statue continued not to say anything.

Looking to his feet, he couldn't help but let out another snort. He had been doing that a lot lately.

"Why am I so powerless?"

_"Why don't you just take a swan dive off the roof, and hope to be born with a Quirk in the next life, Deku!"_

Starting at the sudden memory, his raised his eyes to those of the statue yet again, and let a humorless smile onto his face.

"Yeah, why don't I?" He asked, lowering his eyes once again.

But then, a question popped into his mind, and he raised his eyes once more.

"Is what I'm thinking of doing... wrong?"

Before the statue had a chance to respond (not that it could or would), Izuku continued talking.

"No, I don't think it is. Rather, I think it's all I can do right now that makes sense. After all, while I might be doing it for selfish reasons, it will surely do the world some good, right?"

At this, he couldn't help but let a sardonic smirk cross his face.

"At the very least, it will keep Bakugo from stomping on even more people, right? The fact that it will provide me some measure of revenge is just a bonus, right?"

Looking at the emotionless eyes of the statue, Izuku heard the church bell start to ring, and could no longer stop the tears threatening to emerge, falling to his knees, he finally let out all of the emotions he was feeling, and let them quietly fall down his cheeks.

"W-why I-is it a-always m-m-me? W-why am I-"

But before his could finish his heartfelt query, he felt something land on the back of his neck. Something wet.

Looking up at the statue, he saw a black liquid trailing down from its' eye. To his eyes, it almost looked like it was crying.

Then he felt the liquid on the back of neck _move_.

Raising his left hand -to do what, he wasn't entirely sure- he was once more greeted with the sight of black liquid.

This time, however, it was falling from the ceiling, right onto his raised arm.

And then he saw it _lurch_.

He didn't even have time to scream.

* * *

Izuku hadn't really been expecting to wake up again, if he was being honest. In the few seconds he had before the liquid consumed him, he thought he was once more being attacked by someone like the sludge villain. So, suffice to say, he thought his fate had been to be suffocated, and then left behind as a corpse or taken as some sort of body puppet.

Instead, he found himself clinging onto the side of one of the largest buildings in Musutafu. Even more surprising than that, was just how great he felt, how natural it felt to cling to the side of the building, high above it all, looking down on the city below.

And he got another surprise when he looked into one of the buildings' windows, in the form of who he found staring back at him.

Wearing all black everything, his form would have blended entirely into the night if it weren't for the moon. With black boots, some form of black under-suit, black slacks, a black shirt, black gloves, and a strangely fashionable black jacket with a collar, he would have fit right in at a semi-casual event, if it weren't for one thing.

Raising the hand that wasn't somehow sticking to the side of the building to the back of his neck, he confirmed two things. One, that he was indeed looking at himself, as he saw the figure in the window raise their hand as well, and two, that he was wearing a mask. A mask that covered everything the rest of his clothes didn't, besides his hair, which was swaying gently in the breeze. Also, was that a hint of white on one of his bangs?

Looking at the mask, he found his eyes drawn to... well, his eyes, or rather, what he assumed his eyes were seeing through.

Two serrated, white... ovals? Acted as his eyepieces, as well as the only pieces of not-black on his clothes. Honestly, they reminded him of Spider-man's eyepieces, only a bit edgier, almost literally. In fact, if it weren't for the jacket, slacks, and boots, the entire costume could have just been a darker, edgier Spider-man costume. He narrowed his eyes at the thought, and saw his 'eyepieces' narrow as well. Weird.

Feeling what felt like a sort of amused agreement from the back of his mind, he couldn't help but think, _'Yeah, it's basically Spider-man's costume, Halloween edition ... wait, what? A pulse of agreement?'_

Disturbingly, he could feel a steady pulsing of amusement, coming from the same place in the back of his mind, in a way he couldn't help but compare to chuckling.

Wondering if he was finally losing his mind, he thought to what had happened right before he had passed out.

Then, it hit him.

_'You're the black liquid that attacked me earlier, aren't you?'_

Feeling another pulse of agreement from the back of his mind, he then took greater notice of something that he had noticed earlier, but shoved to the back of his mind.

_'Wait, why I am sticking to the side of a building? No, wait, forget that, _how_ am I sticking to the side of a building?'_

Feeling another steady pulsing in the form of what he was beginning to recognize as this beings form of chuckling, he couldn't help but feel his life had just gotten a lot more complicated.

_'But...'_

Looking at where his hand was still sticking to the side of a building, he couldn't help but feel that maybe, just maybe, things where finally starting to look up for him.

And if not, well, it wasn't like the 'choice' he was considering earlier was entirely out the window, right?... _Right?_

The foreboding silence suddenly coming from the back of his mind did not exactly fill him with comfort.


End file.
